Moiré: Weird Image Shrinking Effect

Found this while browsing Amazon and listening to Queen's Jazz album. (not their best, but underrated, IMO.)

Here is the full-sized album cover:



And here is the shrunken version appearing on the item page:



Very strange, and it doesn't happen when I shrink it using GIMP, or in my iTunes' cover art display.

Update: A very helpful answer to my ask.metafilter question about this is here from taz:

I had bookmarked the Project Lite Moire Phenomena site some time ago, but was frustrated to find that the Bush necktie debacle brought it into the glare of the blogging world before I could gather the other links that I wanted to include with it. Here are a couple of nice ones: Molecular Expressions' Moiré Pattern Generator, which we've visited before, and their fun page of moiré-fueled movement illusions, and permadi.com's animated moire circles and moire fractal pattern generator. More, more moiré at Sandot Science, Mathematik, and Eluzions.

For some nice moiré-style tile backgrounds, see these "silk moire" patterns from my old Tile-a-Day.

Posted by taz on April 22, 2004 at 04:13 AM in Illusion, Optical Art | Permalink

Update 2: Oh, my...

When the lines on your screen
Make more lines in between
That's a moiré!
posted by mendel at 9:25 AM PST on April 10

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